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The boat may have sailed without you, but we have a boatloadof information to share from the 2015FBS User Conference. In this month's FarmSmart you'll find plenty of photos as well as links to slides and complete videos of the first day's presentations.

Thanks again to our guest presenters and participants who made the pilgrimage to Moline, traded "secrets" and now are putting those ideas into practice.

Click here to view videos of User Conference Day 1 presentations. Next month's FarmSmart will contain links to videos from Day 2.

The annual conference of the American Society of Agricultural Consultants (ASAC) is taking a look at “Tomorrow’s Agriculture… Today.” The conference, to be held November 1-3, 2015 in Memphis, Tennessee, will take a comprehensive look at the future of agriculture from an ag consultant perspective and how today’s practices impact tomorrow’s yield.

Agricultural consultants provide insight into multiple facets of ag operations. Members of ASAC advise clients on business decisions about the current operation of, and future opportunities for, the client’s enterprise. Consultants may focus on financial matters, business structure, human relations, business succession planning, personnel management, or production and operations issues.

“We’ve lined up a program that will give consultants tools they can use immediately to help their clients in the field, no matter the focus of their consultancy,” says Norm Brown, CAC, president of FBS Systems and current ASAC president. “Day one has a heavy focus on technology and innovation, with experts from Syngenta and Precision Planting sharing stories of growers outperforming in their fields and in the marketplace. Additionally, we’ll learn about advances in biotechnology and IT security in small business.”

The core of ASAC membership is ethics. ASAC consultants value honesty and fair dealing in a manner which promotes the personal growth of their customers, employees, and shareholders. Day two has a heavy focus on economics, finance and ethics in our industry.

“Sustainability is more than a buzzword in agriculture, farmers have always looked to do more with less. Several sessions will dig deeper into the economic side of the sustainability equation,” says meeting program chair and farm business consultant with Farm Credit East, Erin Pirro, CAC.

Pirro concludes, “The program committee recognizes time is valuable, so we’re packing two days full of sessions designed specifically to help in all facets of an ag consultancy.”

Iowa pork producers Steve and Becky Kerns were recognized in the Fall 2015 Pork Checkoff Report for their conservation practices and niche production of "heritage" pork breeds for the high-end restaurant market.

NEW: Catch up on the webinars you've missed by watching them on the Webinar page of our website.

Q&A of the Month: Handling Credit Cards in FBS

Sarah Dixon, FBS Technical Services Manager

Q. Does FBS have a way to handle credit card purchases?

A. Yes, we do through the Accounts Payable(A/P) module.

First, go to the Vendor Setup screen and mark your credit card bank as C=Credit Card in the Report flag field. This will allow you to code your actual vendor in the A/P, run a reports that matches your credit card statement as well as activity for actual vendor and pay your credit card transactions through Pay AP Entries screen.

Here’s the rest of the process:

As soon as you record the credit card vendor in the A/P Entry screen, press Enter on the keyboard and the screen will bring up a second vendor field called Actual Vendor.

The actual vendor does not need to be a name from your vendor list, but if it is noton your vendor list and is notflagged as an A/P vendor then you will lose some reporting function in the A/P detail reports.